Sunday, 28 October 2012

Welcome to the Morbid Reich

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. What am I talking about? It is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in the very room that you are in. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, and when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. The truth that you are a slave. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. This lengthy paraphrase from the Matrix roughly describe the current political climate in the West. When I say 'the West,' I am largely referring to America, Britain, the European Union, and its member states. A few notable exceptions are Iceland, who overthrew their government relatively recently, Switzerland, who aren't part of the EU or EEA, Australia, and New Zealand, albeit these two are more economically free than socially free.

Whether people are cognisant of this reality or not, the sad fact is that the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, and the individual member states of the European Union are inherently corrupt. We increasingly find governmental control over not just our economic lives, which is leading to the destruction of economies and market forces around the world, but our social lives also, which is leading to our civil liberties and human rights being violated, massively so, and on a daily basis. To quote Rod Serling, this is a not a new world, but merely an extension of what began in the old one. It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom. Like every one of the super states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: that logic is an enemy, and truth is a menace.

However, even more alarmingly, is that there are people unaware of the violent intrusion of authoritarianism into our daily economic and social lives. Even worse, there are people who ARE aware, but claim these things are actually a preferable state of affairs, or are even a good state of affairs! Either these people are wilfully deluded, ignorant, or morally complicit in the evils committed by western governments. It is hard for me to know where to begin, as there are just so many crimes against humanity that have been committed by western governments, not just against their own people, but against the citizens of other nations. Invasions of the Middle East, drone strikes against other nations, intervention that creates terrorists, foreign aid that funds dictators, arms and war around the world. Closer to home, we have the US Patriot Act and its equivalents in the UK and EU. Indefinite detentions of suspects without warrants, torture, secret grand juries who have imprisoned people literally for being anarchists (people who believe that government is wrong) and owning anarchist literature.

As bad as this is, this is only the tip of the iceberg. We have governments funding and bailing out corrupts corporations and banks, creating monopolies, and destroying small businesses. We have government regulation of and intervention in trade, creating price bubbles, driving inflation, and causing unemployment. Taxes making people and businesses poorer, only for the government to continuously squander other people's money. Increased police power and military spending, increased police corruption, government funding and control over media, silencing those who whistle-blow on their many palpable, and egregious errors (which are considerable.) Banning and controlling certain substances, saying what we can and cannot eat, what we can and cannot own, and what we can and can not say. Imposing absurd and ridiculous standards for immigration that are either too lax, or too strict. Absurd levels of airport security that have literally done nothing to prevent terrorism in any way whatsoever.

Even after all of this, there is still more. Forced television licenses, and a variety of absurd charges and fees, paying for things the government has no right to force us to fund. Western governments are driven by party politics and career politicians. Millionaires with no real world experience automatically acquiring high places in government the moment they leave university, and corrupt politicians voting in line with their party interests, and not what the people actually want. MPs and MEPs in Britain and Europe enjoying high salaries, whilst simultaneously committing tax fraud and evasion, and claiming false expenses paid for by the general public. Even still I have not possibly covered everything that is wrong with the current government in the west. The fact remains that western government is absolutely and at every level corrupt, and must be opposed, repudiated, resisted, and fought against at every level, at every possibility, and at any cost. We must overthrow these corrupt institutes lest they destroy us all, and return us to the days of the morbid reich.

Some may complain that there is nothing that we can do, but this is a lie that we have been brainwashed with by government sponsored media propaganda. Iceland overthrew its corrupt government relatively recently, a fact that western media outlets deliberately neglected to mention. Switzerland is not a member of the EU, nor the European Economic Area. It is the fifth most economically free nation in the world, and the first most economically free nation in Europe. The average salary is the equivalent of $100,000 per year, taxes are low, their levels of crime much lower, and their standards of living much higher. Australia and New Zealand are also the third and fourth most economically free nations in the world respectively, albeit they are less freer socially. Hong Hong is the most economically free nation in the world, however, again is not as socially free as it is economically free. These facts should encourage and motivate those who long for true freedom and democracy and believe as I do that the current form of government in the west is an anathema, and a chimera. A force of evil that seeks only to leech from those it claims to protect, whilst ever destroying their freedoms, and taking away their human rights and civil liberties.

We are currently a captive culture, controlled by pleasure in addition to pain. Distracted by meaningless soap operas, talk shows, gossip and celebrity magazines, tabloids, and a whole host of shiny objects we are suposed to value instead of human company, companionship, liberty, and democracy. As long as we have what we think we want, we think that we are happy, and cease to care about others less fortunate than ourselves. Ignoring the fact that western governments are literally killing people, either directly or indirectly. To quote Fight Club, we work jobs we hate, to buy shit we don't need. If we do not comply, then we are bullied into submission by an ever oppressive state. In short, we are amusing ourselves to death. We are currently living in a world reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. When we eventually wake up, I fear we will find ourselves to be in George Orwell's 1984. If we hold true to our ideas, then we will succeed against the authoritarian regimes who have us imprisoned. To quote V for Vendetta, ideas are bulletproof, and to reference Rod Serling once more, I am a human being, and if I speak one thought aloud it lives, and will continue to do so long after I am shovelled into my grave. People should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people.